As you can see from this old Candid Camera footage, its a great way to demonstrate the power of “social proof” or social conformity.  This is the idea that people will tend to conform to the behaviour of the group.  They will adjust their behaviour so as not to stand out from the crowd- conversely – if they see a lot of people doing the same thing then they will tend to copy that.

Advertisers know this well.-  Eight out of ten cats said their owners were influenced by social proof.

Why do you think every sales pages on the internet has testimonial after testimonial on it?  If all those people have bought it then it must be the right thing to do right?

Do check out the video- everyone who has seen it has simply loved it!! 

You may have read that conversational hypnosis is largely based on the work of Milton H Erickson the american doctor and hypnotist who pioneered the techniques of indirect hypnosis.

Ericksons work was studied by many people including  Jay Haley, Stephen Gilligan, Stephen Brooks, Richard Bandler and John Grinder.  His teachings within the field of hypnotherapy are promoted and “protected” by  the Erickson Foundation

There are many institutions offering tuition in Ericksonian Hypnosis but they tend to focus on the use of hypnosis in medical and therapeutic situations.  In fact  Clifford Mee claims on his conversational hypnosis site  that the Erickson Foundation think that ONLY doctors and suitably qualified people should be allowed to train in hypnosis.

I would say that conversational hypnosis is based more on the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder and their understanding of what it was that Milton Erickson was doing.  Many of the techniques that you will learn are very similar but the focus, and sometimes what they are called will be different.  Personally I find the descriptions of Milton's work that Richard and John created much easier to understand and learn and they can be applied more widely.

So to conclude, there's not that much difference!!  Ericksonian hypnosis is more focused on the medical and therapuetic applications but they are both forms of indirect hypnosis.

The fact is that the skills that make a good hypnotist are the same skills that make a good communicator and being a good communicator can help you in every area of your life.

Learning hypnosis you will become more sensitive to the unconscious ways that people communicate with you using their tone of voice or their body language.  And learning how hypnotic language patterns work will teach you how language works and how to use it intentionally to have a certain desired affect.

Here are just some of the ways in which people are already using hypnosis.

Therapy, Healing and Fitness.

Hypnotherapy is one of the most successful treatments for a broad range of conditions but hypnosis can also be useful as an adjunct to other forms of therapy.  I have taught masseurs, psychotherapists, doctors and dentists, sports coaches and beauticians the art of hypnosis becasue they recognise they can use the insights of NLP and hypnosis to make their work better.

Many people also learn hypnosis so they can apply it to themselves.

Education and Training

Teachers and trainers learn hypnosis so they can help their students to remember more and learn faster.  There are lots of applications of hypnosis to accelerated learning.  This is an area I am particularly fascinated in and I use it a lot myself.

Sales

You can bet that the best sales people know all about hypnosis.  Of course they are going to learn a skill that makes them better at making money!

Parenting

A good hypnosis course is a great grounding in practical psychology and it can really give you some great insights into how to talk to children and the mistakes a lot of parents make. Even learning some really simple techniques can have a big pay off in this area.

Dating

I’ll be frank with you.  There is a whole school of people who are using hypnosis for what they call “speed seduction”.  At its worst this can be really sleazy and manipulative.  At its best I think it is just “charima enhancement” – helping people to be more confident in themselves and how to listen and talk to the opposite sex.

Whether you are just looking to make new friends or meet that special someone it is definately the case that learning to communicate confidently and to understand people better is going to help make that happen.

Well that’s just to give you an idea, I’m sure there are lots of other examples of how people are using conversational hypnosis to improve their life.  (If you have another one why not leave a comment below?)

Let me explain.  Hypnosis is all about trance.  A trance is just a state of mind in which our attention is absorbed and focused on one particular thing.  Sitting watching TV?  You are in a TV trance.  Have you ever been surfing the web and discovered that loads of time has past and you didn't notice?  Sounds like a surfing trance to me!

Or how about, you are driving or walking somewhere and you suddenly look around and realise you are there already but you didn't notice the journey, you were so lost in your own thoughts?

In hypnosis, the hypnotist directs his or her subject into a particular kind of trance.  There are two basic skills that you have to master.

The first is you have to be able to read people.  You learn to pay attention to their body language and what they say so you can make intelligent guesses about their state of mind.  This is something we all are able to do unconsciously anyway- other wise we'ld never make any friends!

The second thing you need to learn are the special language patterns that guide and direct people into a state of trance.  You begin by pacing their current state of mind and then gently leading them where you want them to go.

It its heart, hypnosis is very simple but like any skill, becoming a true master involves hours and hours of practise and study.  Luckily, with conversational hypnosis this is something that you can do in your everyday life.  With the right teaching materials you can begin learning right away.

People make a lot of extra-ordinary claims about hypnosis so it's reasonable to be sceptical about just exactly what is going on.  In my own experience I have seen plenty of evidence to convince me that in the hands of a skilled practitioner, hypnosis can have a very powerful effect- helping people make all kinds of positive changes in their lives.  Having said that it seems to me that there are also plenty of people out there using hypnosis who don't know what they are doing, plain and simple.

So what about “covert hypnosis” or “black-ops” hypnosis?  In my opinion talk of these “underground” or “secret” techniques is nothing more or less than a marketing scam.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the products that use this kind of marketing don't work- some of them are very good.  I am saying that it is a very good example of using “covert” hypnosis techniques to sell you something!

It's simple really, saying something is “secret” or “covert” or “underground” gives it that edge of danger, of something that most people don't know about it.  So if you learn about it you will be part of the insiders club with special knowledge and power.  That can be very appealing to some people can't it?

Well I just want to blow that right out of the water.  The fact is that the kind of techniques that are taught in conversational hypnosis courses are JUST A NATURAL PART OF EVERYDAY LANGUAGE.  

HYPNOSIS IS EVERYWHERE!!  You are being hypnotised constantly- by television, by advertising, by your parents and teachers, by your friends and colleagues.  And you are hypnotising other people all the time as well.  When you learn conversational hypnosis you just learn to do it delibarately and with greater skill.

I would say one of the most important reasons for you to learn hypnosis is just so that you can avoid being hypnotized in negative ways by other people.  When you learn conversational hypnosis you will have a much better idea of how other people- and the advertising industry attempt to persuade you into their way of thinking.  You will have more choice and more control:  more free will.

Now we all have an idea of what hypnosis is about right?  It’s the old but powerful and charismatic magician swinging his stop watch.  It’s the manipulative Svengali using his powers to corrupt the young and beautiful.  Or it’s the cheesy stage performer making people jump around like chickens or forget the number 3.

As far as I can work out, hypnosis has been around for thousands of years.  As long as people have been interested in improving themselves or having control over others.   It was first brought to the attention of western science by Franz Mesmer, a french man who conceived of “animal magnetism” and used to wave his hands around the “auras”  of his subjects to put them into a trance.  It was the scotsman, James Braid who first conceived the term “hypnosis”.  James Braid build on the work of Mesmer but he wanted to create a more rational and scientific explanation for the phenomena.

Despite the fact James Braid invented the word “neuro-hypnotism” meaning nervous sleep he didn’t like the term.  In fact he decided a better word for what he discovered was “mono-idea-isim”!

Hypnosis only really gained credibility as a medical treatment thanks to the work of Milton Hyland Erickson. Erickson was an incredible man who survived childhood polio thanks to his amazing will power and determination.  At first the medical establishment were totally against hypnosis.  In fact Erickson was called to a meeting where he had to explain himself or he would be thrown out of the medical establishment!  Strangely when he left the meeting, nobody remembered exactly what happened- except after that point he was free to practise hypnosis as much as he liked!!

Milton had his own unique approach to hypnosis.  Instead of swinging a stop watch or any of those old methods, he would just talk to people and as they listened to them they would begin to go into a trance.  He pioneered the field of indirect hypnosis.  Many people came to study his work and find out how he did what he did.  The most successful of these people were Richard bandler and John Grinder the co-creaters of NLP

It was probably the work of Richard and John that first made people realise that hypnosis could be done conversationally.  They showed how Milton Erickson used patterns of language and of body language in special ways in order to achieve his results.  Those patterns are just a natural part of language.  The secret is knowing how to use them precisely.  Once you understand that then you can use them in everyday conversation.

Igor Ledochoski created the first training course in conversational hypnosis and the popularity of that course means that now lots of other people will be cashing in on the same market.  This is good news for the student of hypnosis because it means there will be much more choice in the future.